some measure to the method of discovering the quality and condition of the subject matter of investigation.

CXXVIII. Let none even doubt whether we are anxious to destroy and demolish the philosophy, arts, and sciences, which are now in use. On the contrary, we readily cherish their practice, cultivation, and honour; for we by no means interfere to prevent the prevalent system from encouraging discussion, adorning discourses, or being employed serviceably in the chair of the professor or the practice of common life, and being taken, in short, by general consent as current coin. Nay, we plainly declare, that the system we offer will not be very suitable for such purposes, not being easily adapted to vulgar apprehensions, except by effects and works. To show our sincerity in professing our regard and friendly disposition towards the received sciences, we can refer to the evidence of our published writings (especially our books on the Advancement of Learning). We will not, therefore, endeavour to evince it any further by words; but content ourselves with steadily and professedly premising, that no great progress can be made by the present methods in the theory or contemplation of science, and that they cannot be made to produce any very abundant effects.

CXXIX. It remains for us to say a few words on the excellence of our proposed end. If we had done so before, we might have appeared merely to express our wishes, but now that we have excited hope and removed prejudices, it will perhaps have greater weight. Had we performed and completely accomplished the whole, without frequently calling in others to assist in our labours, we should then have refrained from saying any more, lest we should be thought to extol our own deserts. Since, however, the industry of others must be quickened, and their courage roused and inflamed, it is right to recall some points to their memory.

First, then, the introduction of great inventions appears one of the most distinguished of human actions, and the ancients so considered it; for they assigned divine honours to the authors of inventions, but only heroic honours to those who displayed civil merit (such as the founders of cities and empires, legislators, the deliverers of their country from lasting misfortunes, the quellers of tyrants, and the like). And if any one rightly compare them, he will find the judgment of antiquity to be correct; for the benefits derived from inventions may extend to mankind in general, but civil benefits to particular spots alone; the latter, moreover, last but for a time, the former for ever. Civil reformation seldom is carried on without violence and confusion, whilst inventions are a blessing and a benefit without injuring or afflicting any.

Inventions are also, as it were, new creations and imitations of divine works, as was expressed by the poet :*—

"Primum frugiferos fœtus mortalibus ægris

Dididerant quondam præstanti nomine Athenæ
Et recreaverunt vitam legesque rogarunt."

And it is worthy of remark in Solomon, that whilst he flourished in the possession of his empire, in wealth, in the magnificence of his works, in his court, his household, his fleet, the splendour of his name, and the most unbounded admiration of mankind, he still placed his glory in none of these, but declared that it is the Ey of God to conceal a thing, but the glory of a king to search it out.

Again, let any one but consider the immense difference between men's lives in the most polished countries of Europe, and in any wild and barbarous region of the new Indies, he will think it so great, that man may be said to be a god unto man, not only on account of mutual aid and benefits, but from their comparative states-the result of the arts, and not of the soil or climate.

Again, we should notice the force, effect, and consequences of inventions, which are nowhere more conspicuous than in those three which were unknown to the ancients; namely, printing, gunpowder, and the compass. For these three have changed the appearance and state of the whole world: first in literature, then in warfare, and lastly in navigation; and innumerable changes have been thence derived, so that no empire, sect, or star, appears to have exercised a greater power and influence on human affairs than these mechanical discoveries.

It will, perhaps, be as well to distinguish three species and degrees of ambition. First, that of men who are anxious to enlarge their own power in their country, which is a vulgar and degenerate kind; next, that of men who strive to enlarge the power and empire of their country over mankind, which is more dignified but not less covetous; but if one were to endeavour to renew and enlarge the power and empire of mankind in general over the universe, such ambition (if it may be so termed) is both more sound and more noble than the other two. Now the empire

This is the opening of the sixth book of Lucretius. Bacon probably quoted from memory; the lines are,

"Primæ frugiferos foetus mortalibus ægris

Dididerunt quondam præclaro nomine Athenæ

Et recreaverunt, &c."

The teeming corn, that feeble mortals crave,

First, and long since, renowned Athens gave,

And cheered their liis-then taught to frame their laws.

Prov. xxv. 2.

of man over things is founded on the arts and sciences alone, for nature is only to be commanded by obeying her.

Besides this, it the benefit of any particular invention has had such an efect as to induce men to consider him greater than a man, who has thus obliged the whole race, how much more exalted will that discovery be, which leads to the easy discovery of everything else! Yet (to speak the truth) in the same manner as we are very thankful for light which enables us to enter on our way, to practise arts, to read, to distinguish each other, and yet sight is more excellent and beautiful than the various uses of light; so is the contemplation of things as they are, free from superstition or imposture, error or confusion, much more dignified in itsel than all the advantage to be derived from discoveries.

Lastly, let none be alarmed at the objection of the arts and sciences becoming depraved to malevolent or luxurious purposes and the like, for the same can be said of every worldly good; talent, courage, strength, beauty, riches, light itself, and the rest. Only let mankind regain their rights over nature, assigned to them by the gift of God, and obtain that power, whose exercise will be governed by right reason and true religion.

CXXX. But it is time for us to lay down the art of interpreting nature, to which we attribute no absolute necessity (as if nothing could be done without it) nor perfection, although we think that our precepts are most useful and correct. For we are of opinion, that if men had at their command a proper history of nature and experience, and would apply themselves steadily to it, and could bind themselves to two things: 1. to lay aside received opinions and notions; 2. to restrain themselves, till the proper season, from generalization, they might, by the proper and genuine exertion of their minds, fall into our way of interpretation without the aid of any art. For interpretation is the true and natural act of the mind, when all obstacles are removed: certainly, however, everything will be more ready and better fixed by our precepts.

Yet do we not affirm that no addition can be made to them; on the contrary, considering the mind in its connection with things, and not merely relatively to its own powers, we ought to be persuaded that the art of invention can be made to grow with the inventions themselves.

APHORISMS.-BOOK II.

On the Interpretation of Nature, or the Reign of Man.

I. To generate and superinduce a new nature or new natures, upon a given body, is the labour and aim of human power: whilst to discover the form or true difference of a giving nature, or the nature to which such nature is owing, or source from which it emanates (for these terms approach nearest to an explanation of our meaning), is the labour and discovery of human knowledge and subordinate to these primary labours are two others of a secondary nature and inferior stamp. Under the first must be ranked the transformation of concrete bodies from one to another, which is possible within certain limits; under the second, the discovery, in every species of generation and motion, of the latent and uninterrupted process from the manifest efficient and manifest subject matter up to the given form and a like discovery of the latent conformation of bodies which are at rest instead of being in motion.

II. The unhappy state of man's actual knowledge is manifested even by the common assertions of the vulgar. It is rightly laid down that true knowledge is that which is deduced from causes. The division of four causes also is not amiss: matter, form, the efficient, and end or final cause. Of these, however, the latter is so far from being beneficial, that it even corrupts the sciences, except in the intercourse of man with man. The discovery of form is considered desperate. As for the efficient cause and matter (according to the present system of inquiry and the received opinions concerning them, by which they are placed remote from, and without any latent process towards form), they are but desultory and superficial, and of scarcely any avail to real and active knowledge. Nor are we unmindful of our having pointed out and corrected above the error of the human mind, in assign

• Tò ri nv elvaι, or v ovoia of Aristotle.-See lib. iii. Metap. b These divisions are from Aristotle's Metaphysics, where they are termed, 1. ὕλη ἢ τὸ ὑποκείμενον. 2. τὸ τὶ ἦν εἶναι. 8. ὅθεν ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως. 4. τὸ οὗ ἕνεκεν—καὶ τὸ ἀγαθόν.

ing the first qualities of essence to forms. For although nothing exists in nature except individual bodies, exhibiting clear individual effects according to particular laws, yet in each branch of learning, that very law, its investigation, discovery, and development, are the foundation both of theory and practice. This law, therefore, and its parallel in each science, is what we understand by the term form, adopting that word because it has grown into common use, and is of familiar occurrence.

See Aphorism li. and second paragraph of Aphorism lxv. in the first book.

d Bacon means, that although there exist in nature only individualities, yet a certain number of these may have common properties, and be controlled by the same laws. Now, these homogeneous qualities which distinguish them from other individuals, lead us to class them under one expression, and sometimes under a single term. Yet these classes are only pure conceptions in Bacon's opinion, and cannot be taken for distinct substances. He evidently here aims a blow at the Realists, who concluded that the essence which united individualities in a class was the only real and immutable existence in nature, inasmuch as it entered into their ideas of individual substances as a distinct and essential property, and continued in the mind as the mould, type, or pattern of the class, while its individual forms were undergoing perpetual renovation and decay. Ed.

e Bacon's definition is obscure. All the idea we have of a law of nature consists in invariable sequence between certain classes of phenomena; but this cannot be the complete sense attached by Bacon to the term form, as he employs it in the fourth aphorism as convertible with the nature of any object; and again in the first aphorism, as the natura naturans, or general law or condition in any substance or quality,-natura naturata-which is whatever its form is, or that particular combination of forces which impresses a certain nature upon matter subject to its influence. Thus, in the Newtonian sense, the form of whiteness would be that combination of the seven primitive rays of light which give rise to that colour. In combination with this word, and affording a still further insight into its meaning, we have the phrases, latens processus ad formam, et latens schematismus corporum. Now, the latens schematismus signifies the internal texture, structure, or configuration of bodies, or the result of the respective situation of all the parts of a body; while the latens processus ad formam points out the gradation of movements which takes place among the molecula of bodies when they either conserve or change their figure. Hence we may consider the form of any quality in body as something convertible with that quality, i.e., when it exists the quality is present, and vice versâ. In this sense, the form of a thing differs only from its efficient cause in being permanent, whereas we apply cause to that which exists in order of time. The latens processus and latens schematismus are subordinate to form, as concrete exemplifications of its essence. The former is the secret and invisible process by which change is effected, and involves